Flying

It's almost 2:00 AM and I've just decided to pull out the laptop out of my bag. Been busy packing stuff for our trip to cebu tomorrow. Been married for more tahn 7 years and this will be the first true vacation for us... first airplane ride for the daughter as well, she's very excited. Next year though, we're planning for them to fly into HK when I am there for my usual rounds. At least we get the hotel for free. Maybe finally fulfill my promise for a Disneyland trip.

I guess I'm really back to moving around the region. 4 trips out of the country in the last 3 months, not including 1 cancelled trip to Vietnam. The idea when I bought my laptop bag was for it to double as my luggage bag for trips not taking more than 3 days. Now I don't have to check-in bags and wait at the conveyor belt. Fucking awesome!

The only problems are the liquid stuff. Last week, I was in HK for 4 days (details of which deserve it's own blog), and I finally took a gamble. Brought some hair gel and deodorant spray with me and I didnt get flagged on both HK and Manila screenings. I guess the paranoia is really just on US flights.

It never ceases to amaze me how nuts people are at the boarding gates. I don't really know if these people are flying for the first time, or are really just stupid at following instructions. As soon as the ground crew announces that the gate is opening, a considerable mass of people line up. Of course, they always let passengers board by row number. Rear of the plane first, then they move up to the front by 10 or so. And unless your flying business class or are with children, you have to wait like everybody else.

But that doesnt deter some people I guess. I've been on many flights. Here around Asia, and several across the US as well. Regardless of the continued instructions and placards that they hold up, some people still move up to the line seemingly completely oblivious to the clear instructions being announced. It usually goes on 2-3 times before they figure it out. It's actually kinda amusing. And when you fly around as much as I do, it's something quite funny that you actually come to expect.

I did however ran into something different for the first time. For my Cathay Pacific flight back to Manila last week, they asked everybody to just fall into a huge line. This obviously didn't go well with the passengers and it drew frustration from everyone.

Sucks for me specially, because I dont go rushing in for the queue. I ended up being at the last third of the line. Of course they had 2 lines, 1 for the business class and those with children (which as always is only about 10-15 people), and another line for everyone else. So unless you're ready to shell out a thousand greenbacks for a flight that will last 110 minutes, there really is just 1 line. What ended up being amusing was, every minute or so, someone would try to crossover to the business class line and attempt to pass through from there. Of course, they get rejected and end up being sent back to our line. Not surprisingly... another dufuss would actually try the same stunt.

Cold

Went across the street to grab lunch with the guys. It's definitely confirmed. The temp outside is definitely cooler than inside the data center's...

HK blues

I can't believe it's 12 degrees outside. I was here in HK last month.. it was raining a lot but it wasn't this cold. And here I am still stuck at the data center at 10:45PM, trying to trouble shoot the the network switches.

I brought 2 engineers from Manila with me. They're consultants and are the real ones who are supposed to set all this up. I can't really say I'm complaining that much. I havent exercised my techie troubleshooting skills like this for quite some time now.

We'll probably slug it out for another hour or so, and then call it a night. The Dell guys will be here tom anyway, and at least then we'll get some answers... or at least extra heads working on the problems.

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Lots of blog worthy stuff have happened these past weeks btw. Hopefully, I 'll have some time to catch up and write about it while I'm at the hotel.

Signing off for now...

Saved by the typhoon

When I was in HK a couple of weeks ago, I barely made it to my flight back to Manila. I had a 2PM flight, and I walked in to the airport at about 1PM. Check-in girl at cathay Pacific told me I was late, but at least still made it. I promised myself I'd never let myself be late for a flight again. Until yesterday morning...

I was in Singapore the whole week and had a 9:40AM flight back to Manila. I figured the cab ride from the hotel to Changi would take about 15 mins tops, so I thought it would be fine if I grab some of those breakfast buffet at the lobby very quickly. They had those chicken siew mai (siomai) that I really loved. And so I checked out and hopped on a cab and it was 8:35PM. Crap! It's gonna be realy tight again, but still possible. Then what would've been 15 min ride almost took forever. When I finally arrived at terminal 2, it was already 9:18AM. Fuck... I am screwed!

So I went in line for check-in and then handed over my ticket. The girl looked at my ticket, then at me, and then at her monitor, and then read the ticket again. She finally asked:

"Your flight is at 9:40AM?"

"Yes"

I was thinking of some plausible excuse I could make. Of course having travelled a lot, I knew that usually, check-in would close 45 mins before departure time, and boarding gates 10 mins before. So technically, if she just let me, I could still hope to clear immigration in less than 5 mins and then run like hell to my gate before it closes in 12 mins. Never in my mind did I expect the flight would be delayed, especially since I was flying Singapore airlines. And so I was fucking ecstatic when she finally told me that it had been pushed to 11:00 AM because of the typhoon in Manila.

"That's right!... there is a super typhoon there right now"

I can't fucking beleive it. My wife called me the day before all concerned about it. I told her if the flight got cancelled, I'd stay for another day or two. But I saw in the internet that it actually veered away from a direct hit on Metro Manila so I thought everything was ok.

"Sir, we will be offering you free breakfast at the food gallery."

"Really? Where is the food gallery?"

"It's on the second floor, after you pass immigration. Just present your boarding pass."

I look at my boarding pass and see that the gate won't open till 10:00 AM. Holy Crap! Is this my day or what?